Becoming the Lotus

From the Papyrus of Ani

 
As if I'd slept a thousand years underwater I wake into a new season. I am the blue
lotus rising. I am the cup of dreams and memory opening--I, the thousand-petaled
flower. At dawn the sun rises naked and new as a babe; I open myself and am entered
by light. This is the joy, the slow awakening into fire as one by one the petals open, as
the fingers that held tight the secret unfurl. I let go of the past and release the fragrance
of flowers.

I open and light descends, fills me and passes through, each thin blue
petal reflected perfectly in clear water. I am that lotus filled with light
reflected in the world. I float content within myself, one flower with a
thousand petals, one life lived a thousand years without haste, one
universe sparking a thousand stars, one god alive in a thousand people.

If you stood on a summer's morning on the bank under a brillant sky,

you would see the thousand petals and say that together they make the
lotus. But if you lived in its heart, invisible from without, you might see
how the ecstasy at its fragrant core gives rise to its thousand petals. What is
beautiful is always that which is itself in essence, a certainty of being. I
marvel at myself and the things of earth.

I float among the days in peace, content. Not part of the world, the world
is all the parts of me. I open toward the light and lift myself to the gods
on the perfume of prayer. I ask for nothing beyond myself. I own
everything I need. I am content in the company of god, a prayer that
contains its own answer. I am the lotus. As if from a dream, I wake up
laughing.